Does anyone out there have a manual for the Alpha 77DX I can borrow?
A guy here at work wants to build an amp using a pair of 8877s he scrounged
(pretty nice scrounging, eh?), and wants to check out the ETO design.
If he gets his hands on some more tubes, he may become one of those infamous
"10 KW New England Stations" (tm).
And for what it's worth (re ARRL SSB conditions) - signals on 15 were OK
Sunday, but the band opened later and there just weren't as many new stations
to work. The K1AR guys told me the rate dropped to 10/hour even though the
band was open - they just worked everyone! When 15 was getting ready to close
Sunday afternoon, I got some outrageous reports from G stations ("you're 50 dB
over s9, old chap - tremendous signal"), but the rate still stank. 10 was
strange on Sunday with no Northern Europeans worked, but little pockets of S9
YUs, LZs, etc. No volume at all, though.
I found more split CQing on 75 than usual, and had to keep moving my listening
freq, since either a Novice would start up or a loud European would start
CQing on my listening freq (gee - wonder how he knew it was clear? could it be
that he heard me announce my listening freq?). On 40, I found myself listening
as low as 7029 at times, since there weren't any clear spots higher!
And to answer all you guys out West who want to know where Europe is....
the answer is that it's right on the other side of the hill that N6BV/1 lives
on (1.5 miles away from me). We actually were able to co-exist reasonably
well, except for pileups on 160 (DX signal S2, BV pinning meter and then
some...). If 'AR hadn't moved and had operated from his old house, there's the
chance that we could have had a clean sweep of the top 3 spots by stations in
the same little town in NH (subject, of course, to any of us ever finding out
how K1ZM did...)
And everyone make a point of reading John's column in April CQ. You'll want to
make sure you get on for the Poisson d'Avril Contest (we accept entries in
24-hour categories, or whatever category you choose to concoct...).
73,
Doug K1DG
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